4.  The applicants were born in 1938 and 1968 respectively and live in Kaunas.
5.  On 17 November 1992 the Kaunas City Board restored the applicants’ property rights to part of a building in Kaunas. In particular, it restored in kind the applicants’ property rights to the flats in which they lived. The property restitution decision specified that the property rights to the uninhabited part of the building (hereafter “the disputed premises”) would be restored in accordance with the procedure and terms fixed by the Government.
6.  On 15 October 1993 the Kaunas City deputy mayor and the applicants signed a statement of transfer acceptance (priėmimo-perdavimo aktas), by which the disputed premises were transferred to the applicants. On 21 December 1993 the applicants registered their title to the premises.
7.  By a decision of 21 March 1994, the Kaunas City mayor declared the statement of transfer acceptance unlawful and consequently null and void. By a decision of 31 May 1994 the Kaunas City Board supplemented the decision of 17 November 1992 with a clause which specified the form in which the property rights were to be restored. Therein it was decided to pay compensation for the disputed premises, at that time occupied by a pharmacy, after the Government had determined the means and the procedure by which compensation was to be paid.
8.  By a decision of 14 June 1994, the Kaunas City Board transferred the disputed premises from the balance sheet of one State-run company to the balance sheet of the State-run company of Kaunas area pharmacies. Subsequently, by a decision of the Kaunas City Board of 14 June 1996, the disputed premises were transferred into the private ownership of the closed-stock company, Šlamučio vaistinė.
9.  On 3 June 1994 the applicants, together with other persons in a similar situation, brought a civil claim, challenging the local authorities’ decisions of 21 March 1994 and 31 May 1994. It was dismissed as unsubstantiated by the Kaunas City District Court on 4 July 1994.
10.  On 22 August 1994 the Supreme Court quashed the lower court’s decision and remitted the case for a fresh examination. The Supreme Court noted that the lower court had not examined all the relevant circumstances. In particular, it had not taken account of the fact that, at the time of the adoption of the impugned decisions, the applicants had already been recognised as the owners of the entire building. The Supreme Court observed that only a court and not a local authority could have annulled the applicants’ ownership rights.
11.  On 7 October 1994 the Kaunas City District Court decided to suspend the civil proceedings further to a request by V.A., one of the plaintiffs in the case, on account of the illness of one of his relatives, who also was a plaintiff in that case. The court ordered V.A. to inform it when his relative’s state of health would allow her to participate in the proceedings.
12.  On 1 July 1999 the Kaunas City District Court of its own motion resumed the civil proceedings.
13.  On 9 September 1999 the Kaunas City District Court granted the applicants’ claim. It declared the local authority’s decisions of 21 March 1994 and 31 May 1994 null and void, restoring the applicants’ title to the premises occupied by the pharmacy.
14.  On 28 February 2000 the Kaunas Regional Court upheld that decision.
15.  On 12 September 2000 the Supreme Court quashed the lower courts’ decisions and returned the case to the Kaunas City District Court for an examination de novo. The Supreme Court considered that the lower courts had again failed to assess all the relevant circumstances – even those to which attention had been drawn in its decision of 22 August 1994 – and that they had erred in law.
16.  On 18 February 2004 the Kaunas City District Court dismissed the applicants’ action. The court observed that the law had not provided for restitution in kind of immovable property if it had been occupied by public-interest institutions, such as a pharmacy. The court further interpreted the decision of 17 November 1992, noting that it could not have been read as guaranteeing restitution in kind of the entire building, but only of the unoccupied part. The court annulled the ambiguous phrasing of the decision, leaving it to the local authorities to determine how to remedy the situation, either by pecuniary compensation or by the transfer of an equivalent property.
17.  On 23 September 2004 the Kaunas Regional Court upheld the decision of the first-instance court.
18.  On 26 January 2005 the Supreme Court dismissed a cassation appeal by the applicants.
19.  On 25 May 2005 certain parties to the case, including the applicants, submitted a request to the Kaunas City District Court to interpret its decision of 18 February 2004. Their request was dismissed on 21 June 2005.
20.  On 3 April 2006 V.A. instituted civil proceedings challenging the initial proportions of the applicants’ and other interested parties’ property rights, as set in the decision of 17 November 1992. By a final decision of 5 September 2007 the Kaunas City District Court left V.A.’s request unexamined because V.A., although having been duly informed about the hearing, failed to appear in court.
21.  On 11 December 2008 the head of the Kaunas City Municipality issued an order to pay the applicants pecuniary compensation for the disputed premises. The compensation was to be paid in three instalments and on 29 December 2008 the applicants received the first payment due. The two remaining instalments are to be paid in 2009 and 2010.